Words Unanswered
by rednightmare
Summary: The most terrible thing you can do to a writer, Bilbo is sure, is answer words with silence. Bittersweet comedy-drama. Features a female-centric reimagining of dwarven government, an unbeloved king, four abundantly opinionated princes, one foxish she-elf, and extreme strife in Dale. Candidly, Bilbo is just trying to finish this book and go home.


For tigerbalm01.

This is an Everybody Lives, but with a few tweaks and mutations. Consider these characters a fusion of the book and movie personalities: Bilbo's scrappier than he is sniffly; Thorin is less of PJ's grizzled loner and more of Tolkien's Very Important Dwarf; Tauriel is not as starry-eyed as she is clever.

This piece partners fully with the characterization in "He Does Not," but not with the plot – because in "He Does Not," they all bite the dust. (You can find that one linked to my profile on or on Ao3 under the same pen name.)

* * *

 **WORDS UNANSWERED**

 **Chapter One**

All right, if you really must hear it, fine: he was not the most respectable lettersmith in Arda.

He didn't scribble one off, bowtie a pigeon and slingshot it into the courtyard or anything. He waited an appropriate amount of time. He bought some decent iron-gall ink. Actually, to be candid, he began that first one almost right away, flattening paper across his knees one night with Gandalf roasting chestnuts on their meager campfire beside him and the Lonely Mountain looming overshoulder like some sad colossus in the scant cover of clouds. But he waited a good few weeks to send it – just to be sure he hadn't accidentally written in some unfortunate dwarfish offense, or made a dismal reference to gold, or babbled the daftest Shireling thing that popped into his head at any given moment, such as the fact he was just now remembering how to worry about what his thieving cousins had done to the silverware. Or that he'd discovered the all-powerful wizard couldn't even stew respectable rabbit-and-carrot dumplings. Or where all the leaves had gotten off to (wasn't summer just yesterday). Or my, how clear the sky is up here in the ranges, like little wafts of white smoke in the sea, and have you ever seen a blue shriek of sky like that. (These all, save perhaps the last one, being typical things hobbits tend to fuss about.) Look, the point is: they were edited letters, you understand, carefully edited. He hadn't been rushing or nasty or cavalier. Given way he had left the king's court – that is, the circumstances and concerns and conditions and considerations and probably a plethora of other reasonable-sounding words that begin with c – Bilbo thought he should be very mindful with the language, because you must know that if nothing else, he didn't mean to cause any trouble at all.

For being a writer of horrible monsters and noble characters, Master Baggins was not very eloquent when handling the unfantastical truth. He was always a better dreamer of stories than a maker of what is real.

The second time Bilbo wrote, it was primarily to let everyone know he'd survived the long winter's journey home – _no need to fetch my effects from the bottom of some trollcave (hahaha)_ – and to reiterate, just in case that painstakingly tenderfooted first letter had been lost, that he really was not cross with Thorin or anyone for that matter, not in the least, and here is the jovial tone and smart levity to prove it. _Hobbits, you know, are not very good at holding grudges_ , he wrote. He noted _our lives are too short and our hearts too spring-green_. And, as he'd said many a time before, Bilbo said _all that might merit forgiveness have already been forgiven_. This was merely the culmination of a well-thought-out personal decision, and by now, surely everyone has come to realize it's for the best.

He was rather excessively friendly, to be so frank. He slid in a joke about the Erebor-Shire trek going much faster when you're not spending it getting chased in circles by wine-drunk elves. He inquired after the health of Prince Fíli and the behavior of Prince Kíli; no mention of sickness; he's sure everything is just fine.

He signed:

 _Cheers,_

 _Bilbo_

and he sealed it up and sent it off.

That done, Bilbo got down to the long business of waiting.

Early springtime in the Shire, if you've never partaken of it, is really quite breathtaking – but in a quiet-heeled way, a way that sneaks up on you like a silly cousin capping her hands over your eyes. It happens gradually, then all of a sudden. The first good snowmelt waters the tenderest, halest baby grass, and then the hills, still yellow with the crunch of Solmath, blink out from under their frost. Pastures twinkle beneath the wetness of the old season, and soon tough, deep-rooted weeds begin to perk up. Soon comes thistle, valiant purple, struggling at the bare edges of wood. Soon: daisies, brave against the cold, unbroken white and quite heroic. Soon new shoots in the sweet potato patches, new leaves on the crabapples, new buds on the pink scattering of dogwoods as they crown in fine gardens here and there. Soon the sunwarm earth rolls over and lazily throws one foot out of bed, then the other, and before you know it, the wildflowers burst into gallant orange and the fresh mint mornings are upon you again.

Bilbo brought his writing outside. After months spent shuttered up in his study – hunched over the cluttered desk, watching Tomfool Rethe puff on his window panes, sipping chalky hot cocoa that now seemed pitiful and bland in the wake of all that distressingly spicy dwarven food – the writer began to let himself breathe. He aired out his whole house and broke out the cinnamon broom. He sang while scrubbing the dishes and folding the towels. He took to sitting on the front bench again in the newest wince of daybreak, one leg tossed over the other, biting his thumbnail or swigging chamomile tea, crossing and crisscrossing his lazy imagery and his mixed metaphors and his weak-ankled diction that just didn't get the pictures through. He'd wave at surly Grandmam Peabody next door; he'd have the ever-delightful Primula and the dull-but-wholesome Drogo over for luncheon; he'd eye daggers at Lobelia whenever the Sackville-Baggins clan passed him during Sunday market. And he would live on, my dear, much as he always had – but with a little less fear in his clever voice, and a little more fear in the darkest, most secret red meat of his heart.

He put his dwarfish things away under lock and key. He cut his caramel curls short and proper around the singlet war braid he'd hard-earned. He got lax about sharpening Sting, weary of smoothing his mithril coat, and let an inch of his newfound muscle sigh a little softer, until the lines of his ribs were safely ensconced and hobbitish again.

This is how Bilbo came home.

Home, as it turns out, had some minor reservations about having him back.

Oh, it was understandable. He'd given them quite a sight, returning on his lonesome bristling with the spotted snowcat collar of his coat, the elven sword at his hip, the glimmering hauberk and the angular dwarfcopper shield on his back – and you can imagine the jaws swinging then. And you can imagine them swinging when he'd stomped right up the cobbled road to the auctioneers swarming about his estate and said, in his best blacksmith's language: excuse me, so sorry, but what by Mahal's giant swinging stones are you all doing on my lawn.

Hobbiton huffed and grumbled as gentlehobbits will do. They complained with their snippy teeth and mumbling tongues that Bilbo Baggins – vagabond gentry is he! – has come back, and become _completely_ improper. More Belladonna Tookish than ever before and a touch more Tookish again everyday. That way he walks about town these days, jaunty like a summer jackrabbit, not right for a hobbit of his stature. Add it to those ridiculous rumors – dragon-hunting with dwarves. Rest his poor father's soul. Where _do_ you suppose he got all that money, anyway? Banditry, quite likely. Banditry or burglary, I hear. Not respectable in the slightest – hardly even decent – and he doesn't even seem to care. And I beg your pardon but have you seen his hair!

Well, they were right about that: Bilbo had faced evil and he had witnessed beauty and he had braved death, and he found he just didn't care a fig about little lording properness any more.

And when anyone asked what he'd been up to that whole year-and-some-quarters, Bilbo would merely pop his suspenders, shrug, and say "off hunting dragons, so I hear." You should have seen the tuts and the chortles and the ungraceful whisperings that would get. He let the cuffs of his trousers get a little dirty. He rarely stammered and often slouched; he took up more space than he had before, letting his elbows loose and his legs stretch; and, my dear, he wore that skinny rat's tail of braid tight along his neck, just behind the ear.

They thought he was something of a bounder, to tell true, and to tell truer, it's possible Bilbo might have enjoyed his scoundrelly new reputation a tad. He didn't mean to be a complete snot, obviously. But, incidentally, when you've charmed a red drake in the gold-gilt belly of a dwarf vault, when you've growled down a white warg still dripping royal blood from its chops, and when you've held the heart of a mountain glowing a thousand-and-one blues inside of your smallish, trembling hands, it's a little bit difficult to be all that impressed by harping Shirrif Stomper Gullybrass down the lane.

And, incidentally, Bilbo was still a wealthy and eligible bachelor, even if he was a bit of a scoundrel.

He had gone from being a considerably well-to-do and well-named bachelor to a reprobate bachelor who was rolling in it, as a matter-of-fact, and for all the high society that decided Master Baggins was no longer acceptable company, handfuls more caught one whiff of affluence and came a-calling. He had strange and vaguely offensive marital status inquiries arriving from Overhill, nosy neighbors peeking over the hedges, invitations to elite parties he'd no interest in attending, baskets of hot baked bread left on his stoop left by some poor old seamstress with a single daughter of an entirely unsuitable class (but who knew if bizarre, wayward Bilbo even cared about class anymore), and once he'd even peeled an embarrassing drawing off his study window from some so-called admirer who never introduced themselves. No one seemed to know exactly how rich he was, but rumors ranged from to _richer than the Thane himself_ to _filthy rich as a filthy-rich dwarven prince_. Bilbo, who had known three dwarven princes, could faithfully say this was a slight overestimate.

Still, it's not as though Master Baggins much needed to work any longer – even his little bookbinding and mapmaking business seemed extraneous with a cellar full of gold coins and gemstone. Between a fat treasure chest, his exceptional armor, his oiled furs, his elven weaponry, three handfuls of loose gemstones and the fine buckler Balin sent him away with, Bilbo suspected he'd carried off more than a fair hobbit's-share. _Now what!_ the writer asked of his bookcases and kettle cabinets and the line of Baggins portraits, looking stuffy and proper on his wall. They had no answers for him. He arranged and rearranged. He dusted his mother's rosy cheeks with his palm heel and he sighed.

And through all of this, there was that uncomfortable, wind-in-the-willows, waking dream sense Bilbo had – a faint, gentle suggestion that maybe something yet was coming – though he could think of nothing that ought to be.

He wrote:

 _Dear Balin_

 _Dear Bofur and Dear Bombur_

 _Dear Óin_

 _Dear Ori, Dear Dori, and Dear Nori, too_

Oh, he didn't expect a response right away. It was an agonizing journey for a caravan to take, from a humble strawberry patch Shire to the mighty Lonely Mountain, and Bilbo was mostly sure Balin had been teasing when the old dwarf said that the Ravens of Erebor comprehend Khuzdul.

But then, one day, not so long after he had mailed it: a tap-tap-tap on the window. A letter, sealed with rich tallow and sleeved in ram leather, dropped on the stoop. And a handsome black bird sitting on the mailbox, waiting, preening patiently with its fearsome beak.

Oh, hello, Bilbo said, holding wide the door. Hello and good morning, my fine dwarf-bird. Would you like to come in for a bite to eat?

Apparently they did not understand Common – but all birds, of course, understand the language of biscuits.

Balin wrote lovely letters. Long, moseying, friendly letters on parchment that smelled of beeswax and a musty, sturdy desk. He prattled on in his stubby, tutting penmanship – mentioned the ridiculous rise in the price of lumber and the Thousand Rose celebrations in Dale and how beautiful the bloodreds were coming in this autumn – saying a bit of everything without confiding anything real at all. Bofur wrote jokes in chicken scratch, conveyed Bombur's dictations, and scribbled in the margins to make Bilbo smile. Ori sent dozens of charcoal sketches for the book. Óin wrapped up a guide to eastern plants. Dori sent him some personal recipes for black dwarven tea. Fíli and Kíli were not very good about returning letters, so Bilbo wrote to them only on particular occasions, and rolled his eyes at the sloppy cursive and grease stains he got back.

Of course, he was delighted to receive word from any of them. He could not stymie the bubbling of his chest when the talons and casing gave way to coarse red dwarven paper, and would never make it back to his study. He'd flick a finger and pop the seam and devour them right there in the glare of greengrass Shire morning, box hinges squeaking, pages rustling, pupils scurrying, desperate to hear in the back of his mind the slow, deep voices of dwarves, always speaking of what was old-and-true. He would hurry to write back right away. He popped new ink bottles and lit good candles to work through the evening, if need be. He even began to get used to those big, ominous birds – and from the way they would perch on his sill and crumble his sweet breads and haw-haw-haw, Bilbo got the sense they were judging him.

Thank goodness ravens speak Khuzdul – they couldn't read over his shoulder and notice the writer's letters simply weren't all that good.

He wrote:

 _Dear Balin,_

 _Thank you for the eloquent_

 _Dear Bofur and Bombur,_

 _Now that you're famous I do hope you'll come visit me before_

 _Dear Ori,_

 _The drawings are exquisite. That one in pen looks just like me though I thank you for being a little bit kind to my ears, if you know what I_

 _Dear Dori,_

 _I've tried the recipe and you'll be happy to know_

 _Dear Nori,_

 _Very funny_

 _Dear Óin,_

 _I never had the faintest one could apply bearberry as a_

 _Dear Kíli,_

 _Well you can just tell His Majesty Prince Fíli that I said_

He would bundle up every one of those letters and every one of those names and send them off. In the time it took bunch of six-week daffodils to go from buds in Bilbo's garden to a vase on Bilbo's desk, the ravens would be knocking at his glass again.

He wrote:

 _Dear Thorin_

Astron, Thrimidge, Forelithe, and nothing. A handful of crocuses plucked from the front yard and a bushel of first harvest cauliflower from the Gamgees across the way.

I mean, it's not as though he had literally _nothing_ to keep his time. There was a book to be written, and besides that, domestic troubles needed sortening. Several of Bilbo's possessions had gone missing or been auctioned off, and those that could not be immediately tracked down turned up in the strangest of places: an antique hand-mirror in a satchel of tradehouse yarn; his father's snuffbox wedged the fore of an abandoned fishing boat; a West Farthing sugar cup propped on a pasture fencepost, sitting pretty for the sheep. He had a lot of backtaxes to pay. He had the business of the gentry to do.

And you know, it's not as though Bilbo didn't have family to think about.

Aunts and uncles, uncles and aunts! Aunt Linda was about to hitch herself to a Proudfoot (which adds one more uncle to the Baggins tree), and honestly who ever knew what Uncle Bingo was up to. And the cousins! Do you have any idea how fast an extended family of hobbits produces cousins? Come back from a long visit to the loo in Hobbiton and you've got five or six new cousins. It is, frankly, a little ridiculous. Well, Bilbo had been away for more than a year, and he had babies to visit and shower gifts to give and condescending letters piling up from busybodies who claimed relation, somehow.

Add all that to that the cousins he already had, who ranged from saintly and preachy to deplorably behaved. Dora, who had hardly spoken to Bilbo prior to his departure, kept writing him longish letters as though they were famous old friends. Lobelia was always about – hovering, sniffing. Dudo couldn't make heads-or-tails of his farming equipment and assumed Bilbo, having run off with dwarves, could now fix anything with a tweak of a lever and a thump of his hand. Drogo asked for financial advice. It was really a little transparent.

Primula, he said. _Prim, my dear, when you get a minute, and I hope you don't think me odd, but I would really like to teach you a thing or two about the use of a sword. You being ready to start a family, such as it is._ _No, no; I don't expect trouble._ _It's just that it's a very big and dangerous world out there, and you never do know what might happen, do you._

Who knows what he was waiting for – maybe just for winter to come again.

 _Dear Thorin,_ he wrote:

 _If I have to suffer one more tottering West Farthing pumpkinmonger asking me to procure them a dwarfsword I think I shall go pretty well mad._

 _Look, it's not as if I am opposed to the notion of a domestic lad preparing himself for the worst of the world – because obviously, I'm not – but I'm opposed to the standing fact they don't have a lick of sense as to what to_ do _with it. Forgetting that I can't, in fact, produce a dwarven weapon from vapor by snapping my fingers, let's consider this a moment, shall we. Imagine you are a gardener's boy, or a shepherd, or a cotton-grower or what have you. Your profession is incredibly dull and your brain is roundabout the size of a robin's egg, so you join the Shirrif's Watch, and mostly to tote around a big club while sneering at old people. Your plan is to learn to fight_ after _acquisition of serious weaponry? From a wooden stick fashioned for chasing off crows to, what, a falchion? Oh, sure, and shall I get you a dwarfsteel pollaxe, too? I ask you. What will they stick with it, anyway – rabbits? And I'm sorry, but what do you fancy a potato-picker to do with a sword but hurt himself on it._

 _I suspect what they're truly after is for me to teach them technique. Believe you me, I have seen these lads – they're absolute idiots – and I think their fathers are worse, so I have no plans to do that any time soon. "Think of the township, Bilbo," the Shiriff tells me. Well, I am – thinking specifically of the poor hobbit lasses. I'll not train up a bunch of ill-behaved boys with swords so that they might terrorize girls with them. Sergeant Stomper (that is really his name) is quite cross with me over it, but a Baggins no is a flat-out no, and there'll be no iffing or stipulations about it. I'd sooner shave my feet._

 _What sort of person rears violent boys, I ask. On my life, if I were ever to have a son, he should know how to hold a blade and not be a complete clot about it._

 _And how fare yours? I wrote to Kíli not too long ago, but I suppose the both of them have better things to do now than bother with long fussing letters from some retired mediocre burglar. (And I suspect Gandalf may have slightly overstated my burglaring talents to you at the outset. Which I would apologize for, but I think you've already gleaned that the crooked old man is madder than a marsh hare.)_

 _You know, it was never made abundantly clear to me what sort of role a dwarf prince plays in his government. Is it purely hereditary, or must they perform functions to retain their eligibility for heirship? Hobbits have a somewhat convoluted inheritance process; we split our lineages this way and that way in just a generation or two, so it's a bit more complicated than direct descendancy. Nothing is very direct among hobbits, I'm afraid. There is a great deal of who-said-whatting and this-and-thatting involved. It's a minor nightmare, and heavens forbid the paperwork isn't exactly shipshape. I've no notion of what will happen to Bag End when I'm gone. It certainly won't go to just any old cousin. I'll smash the plates, sell the porcelain, pink the walls and find me an orphan to sign it to before I let a Sackville-Baggins get her grubby little paws on it. But I am sure none of this is of very much interest to a king._

 _Dwarfsword. Oh, spare me. To top it off, if you remember, mine is an elven blade – so they have indeed never even seen a dwarfsword._

 _Besides all that, I'm doing fine._

 _And you? I'm thinking that maybe you should have a strong talk with your bird, because he's taking his jolly time to get here. Did you receive my letters? I've not heard from you and am a bit concerned. I suppose someone would have written me if you died, yes? Certainly I hope so, because I shouldn't like to see a dwarf funeral; I bet they are horribly serious and sad affairs. Optimistically, am thinking the post just got lost._

 _Quite a decent spring. My rutabagas came up nicely. Hope you are well._

And he signed:

 _With Utmost Regard and Loving Respect,_

 _Yours Truly,_

 _Bilbo_

Do you see? Not a very adept letter, at all.

With that, ex-Burglar Baggins sent off his third message to ex-Company Leader Thorin, took a plump stack of paper and mug of black tea to the backyard, and waited and waited some more.

He said Drogo, _mate,_ _I don't know what to tell you – why don't you write to the moneylender in Bree._

He said _you know, Dudo, and I hope you won't take offense, but I really can't help. You should probably buy a new wagon, don't you think?_

He said _for the last time, you rotten boys, you'll get nothing from me – and if I see you skulking about my property again so help me I'll give you all the combat lesson of your lives!_

He said _look, Shirrif, with all due respect, it's really not that difficult. If you're fighting Big Folk, all you need to do is dart through the legs, yeah? and then you swing! just there. Cut the tendon at the back of the knee. Give the insole your heel, and when he's down, why then it's just – it's very simple, really – you need only – it's just a little thrust from the shoulder – what it is, really, is just having a little guts._

He said oh do you know what Lobelia, if that's how you feel about it, if that is how you really feel, you can just go piss on somebody else's fence for a while.

He said is this the way of it?

He said _Prim, Primula, my dear, don't you know I just want you all to be ready for anything in the world._

He really needed to buckle down and finish this book, Bilbo decided. Then maybe the past would feel like it had closed, the back cover had shut, and there wouldn't be this incessant, childish, heartflutter hoping for one more page before the end.

He said you know I just I fear I don't know anything really. I'm afraid I don't know one half as much as I knew I did before.

Then came Mid-year, Afterlithe, Wedmath. The leaves on the honey-peach trees went brittle and brown.

For the longest time, there was no word from Thorin – no word! terrible thing to do to a writer, that. But Bilbo didn't let himself worry overmuch. Lots to do in Erebor, he is sure. Lots to be thinking about and lots to keep you busy, with your stern eyes focused forward, not back.

And then: a package.

Oh, it was definitely dwarven – that Bilbo could certainly tell from the heavy iron on the cylinder, a dark and handsome polished wood. And he could double-certainly tell from the dramatic way it had smacked into his door. Gave our burglar a bit of a fright, that. But, much faster to recover these days than he'd been before, Bilbo answered the door, brought the tube inside, set out a seedcake for the exhausted bird, melted the sealant with a candle, and fished out a stout paring knife to wedge it open.

Standing in his living room, tossing the blade aside in a most irresponsible fashion, Bilbo took a deep breath – and he smelled the rich scent of insulation – the perfume of thick, black dwarven-cured fur.

But he'd opened it upside-down, apparently. Before Bilbo could unpack the contents in a more reasonable fashion – as he stood there, smoothing the pelt with his thumbs, welcoming one small vestige of the luxury of dwarrow – something weighty and bright unrolled from it and banged right on the pretty pecan floor.

A dwarven sword.

More of a sidearm, for accuracy's sake – a fine, stubborn dagger, undoubtedly downsized to suit someone of Bilbo's rather lackluster limb length, straight-lined and wide and two-edged and incredibly sharp. Silvery white dwarfsteel, yes, with an ebon crossguard, red leather grip, and brilliant greenstone set in the pommel (Bilbo, who was not well-versed in gems, supposed it for an emerald or a bit of jade). There was no reading the gold inlay along the fuller – who knew if it was runes or decoration. He turned it about in the dim autumn sunlight leaking through his curtains. He tested the angry point in one palm and had to shake the bite back out of it, dammit-and-blasting under his breath.

Not bad, Bilbo decided, trying on a stance; he sucked in his breath and steeled his stomach; he gave it a mean thrust forward and a clever thrust back. _'Not too bad at all; a little heavy; my arm's gone soft.'_

He'd practice a bit more with it later. He'd have to give it a proper stand-up to Sting, certainly, though a prudent hobbit might keep his comparative summaries regarding elven/dwarven measurements to himself. He'd note his observations in a journal – but for now, Bilbo found himself lunging for the pelt, whisking it up and turning it over. He grabbed the tube and shook it. He stuck his hand all the way in and fumbled, with increasing frustration, sure he'd fingernail the trapped parchment off its sides soon enough.

 _No letter!_ Bilbo said. No, see here, that can't be right. But he scraped and he groped and he squinted and he peered, and there was nothing else – nothing more – just darkness inside of a now-empty case.

The fourth time Bilbo Baggins wrote to Thorin Oakenshield, he was feeling a little bit shorter than the last, and opened:

 _Dear Thorin,_

 _I understand you are not entirely pleased with my declination of the generously offered court seat but I am really not trained for all that, no offense meant, and considering the demands and addendums and quid pro quos, it was both impossible and irresponsible to consider accepting. I am sure Dwalin is serving much more adequately in the role and you have to admit, a hobbit King's-Guard looks a little ridiculous._

 _How are new dwarven lords adjusting?_ he said. He said I do hope all is well. He said when you get a moment – and please don't rush – but when you get the time I would really like to hear from you.

He said

 _Thank you for the sword. It's very fine._

He signed

 _In Friendship and Patience,_

 _With an Extra Helping of Patience,_

 _Bilbo_

Halimath, Winterfilth, Blotmath, and then he had the long greenless winter again.

It was Foreyule before the second parcel arrived. This one was lighter than the last, and Bilbo searched for the letter before he undid the stout square of fur. There was no word. There was not even a chain on the medallion he'd received – a rising sun of solid, poured gold, ringed with celebrated Erebor silver, livid and just too large to curl his fingers around when held in the center of a palm. Unreadable runes circling the edge; an unknown symbol blackening the back, looking harshly official. Bilbo turned it over and over. There was an eye of a red fire opal set in the middle – and the deep, angular engraving sunk around it was just distinct enough to suggest a mountain's peak.

Never a letter. Not even a note.

It is in this silence that the dark notion comes to Bilbo these are not gifts, at all.

Dear Thorin, he wrote.

 _How is Erebor? I hope you are well._

 _Quite cold here. Snow to the knees, and I'll need to scrape the ice off my windows again by morning, but I keep a mean little fire going all right. The roads are a plain mess. Which is a predicament, it is, because it's nearly Yule now – so of course, everyone's poor pony is sliding to and fro from town, bogged down under a cartful of grainsacks stuffed with presents. That's a bit of Shire tradition for you – come the sixday Yuletide, you're expected to buy gifts for all your relations. Which wouldn't normally be unpleasant and I must sound to you like a choleric baron, but I'm sorry, do you have any idea how many relations your average hobbit has? Such is Yule season. Glut and gut._

 _(That and cranberries. Cranberries everything! Cranberry flatcakes, cranberry pies, cranberry butter, cranberry biscuits! Good cheer to you sir and can I interest you in a cranberry tea with a handful of cranberries in it? I tell you, it's nutty, I'm through.)_

 _If you're not familiar with Yule, and I see no reason why a dwarfking would be, hobbit holidays are different variants of what is essentially the same celebration. Which is to say they are all paper-thin excuses for weeklong dessert nibbling, the encouragement of screaming children, and excessive drinking. (And the cranberries, I tell you! Halfling madness. Completely barmy.) I've been invited to a few parties, but I don't believe I'll attend any of them; gentlehobbit parties are dodgy affairs. My mother swore she was poisoned once at a Baggins-Goodbody reception, but my father said it was only Uncle Togo's green bean lasagna. Tooks have always had what you might call a proclivity for wild imaginings._

 _I don't suppose you have anything like that, lacking the sodding cranberry shrubs and whatall, but nevertheless I hope you are enjoying the winter, and it isn't too awfully bitter in that mountain. I imagine it must be drafty. I don't much fancy the thought of you all walking along on some windy high wall somewhere and finding yourselves suddenly blown about, so take care and all that._

 _Someday I think I should like to see a proper dwarf holiday. Regrettably, my only Durin's Day was a touch lacking in seasonal cheer._

 _Is there much singing at the dwarf new year? Well, I bet you don't all show up on some unsuspecting gent's doorstep in the middle of an otherwise perfectly peaceful evening and trill Snowfall Joy Joy Joy at him. (Yes, there are really three joys in the title.) It is a tragic tradition of my species. Wouldn't be half so painful if the musical merrymakers were actually singers, but not so. They're just any annoying snot down your lane with an overabundance of energy and a need to express their happiness, aggressively. I'm sure dwarves would make it sound much lovelier – but you'll have to trust me: it's torture. Worse: if you're accosted in your own blasted doorframe, neighborliness demands you clap your hands, pinch the fauntlings' cheeks, and serve them all hot cider. We call it "a-caroling."_

 _Hobbits are a moderately ridiculous people, to be frank._

 _(You know who would like it? Bofur. I'd bet my last pumpkin Bofur would a-carol. And Kíli, though mostly to look into people's houses.)_

 _Anyway. For what it's worth: Happy Yule._

 _Please do not send me any further payment, unless it's a letter, because really that is all I ask._

 _Cordially,_

 _Your Friend,_

 _Bilbo Baggins_

 _P.S. I can appreciate why you might be disappointed, but I really cannot be onboard with the EXCEEDINGLY RUDE not speaking to me._

Feeling especially irritated with dwarven melodrama, he underlined both _exceedingly_ and _rude_. He even went back later and underlined _rude_ twice.

The third payment Bilbo Baggins received did not come in a package at all. It was a raven-borne key – no note, no explanation, no suggestion of what to use it on. Bilbo was so confused and irritated he did not even bother responding to this. If it was some mysterious dwarfish sentiment, well, the writer didn't get it, plain-and-simple, and so the key collected dust on his mantle, its metals silent and cold.

Then, nigh six months later, came the trunk: dwarfiron, wagon-carried, unsnappable dwarven hinges and an unbreakable dwarven lock.

Bilbo dragged it inside and put the key in the slot and it opened.

Scale! Glistening, stalwart, evil black scale – obsidian, threatening, like the eyeshine of cats in the dark. Such a shock it was and so clearly valuable, he lurched up to pull the shudders, latch the door, feeling immediately and intensely as though no hobbit should have such a thing. It was lying in a bed of timberwolf fur and cold to the touch when Bilbo reached in to lift the pieces out. A pair of vambraces and shinguards, count two.

He did not put it all on. That would have looked ridiculous. He held a greave, curling it over his lower leg, just to see. He strapped one brace over his forearm to try. A kingly prize, to be sure; an item of legend; something for song. A ransom; irreplaceable; a thing to deck the tombs of warrior-princes and one day become treasures of yore. He studied it, and measured it, and lifted it, and when a bolt of low summer sunlight lanced his curtains to scatter on the surface, that wet blackness exploded into fierce red-gold.

" _Dragon_ scale," Bilbo said, to no one.

There was no word.

Master Baggins had won his final payment. One fair share of a kingdom – it glistered in the sun like fireglow on an ancient jewel.

The last letter Bilbo wrote:

 _Dear Thorin,_

 _Winter is over and the whole green place is green again._

 _The odd thing is that, lately, I feel a little sick of green. Perhaps it's that, when you've been away from something for so long – something close to your roots, that you fancied you knew well – your eyes begin to forget how to see it, and no color is ever the same as it once was._

 _I suppose I've about run out of things to say except for this. I cannot understand how you justify acting as though I've been disloyal when everything I have done – good or ill, clever or foolish – since putting my name on that paper has been for the sake of the Durin family._

 _Frankly, and I hope this is not too much of an affront, but if it is, oh well: the terms of my contract have been exhausted a thousand times over._

 _So since you've chosen to end our friendship over a job appointment, I really don't have much sympathy for you._

 _Don't bother writing. Isn't it funny how puzzles left alone tend to unpuzzle themselves._

 _The last joke of it is that I left because, like you, I wanted to return to a place I belong to, but maybe I don't belong anywhere anymore._

 _I would try to make this mean more than it does, but do you know, these days I find I don't much care for riddles._

 _Happy Durin's Day,_

 _Bilbo Baggins_

The last package Bilbo received was not a package at all. It was an envelope, and it housed a single brass button – no letter, no notice, inside.

This piece, at least, the burglar understood. He went back to his satchel (still semi-packed with the stray adventuring bits and bobs he'd never need), dragged it out from the broom closet, and pulled from its contained mess that sad, battered vest – the one he'd run away from home with – balled-up and grass-stained, cranberry red.

He was surprised this poor thing had subsisted, to tell true, even if the fabric was unseemly and the overcoat long-gone. Its whipstitches sagged. Its tail cinch had broken off and the flat clasp dangled. Its lapels, stained with noseblood and speckled with sweat and overstarched, gave easily in his hands.

It was missing a button – topmost, popped-off – fallen, because he had not, all the way to the foot of a rainy cliff.

Bilbo laid the new one in place. There was no design, the acorn forgotten. Its edges were too intricate, rather than worry-worn smooth. It was a bit shinier than these old soldiers clinging on.

It was not quite right, to put it bluntly. It was a close approximation, a long shadow. It was something to cover a hole.

Well, he said.

He said I suppose that's that.

The End, he said.

And, _The End_ settling in his lungs and his belly and the back of his tongue, the burglar stitched the missing button back into his shirt, and he decided there was nothing worth waiting on anymore.

Then, for Bilbo Baggins, it is summer – a dreaming, timeless summer, soft and sleepy, contentment unending, one that seems to last even through the next bleak winter snow.

* * *

He had left Erebor in young autumn, early morning, when the snowhawks were circling the bright sun of the dark mountain, and there was not a wink of green to be had.

He had not wanted any fanfare, Bilbo said, packing and repacking the journals into his loved buckleather bag. No, thank you, but no. He paced the barren bluffstone of his cleaned-out lodging and swept and reswept and palmed the ancient walls of this before-time place as he went. No horns, no drums, no retinue, no war chants and no crowd to miss. No need to make a fuss and embarrass me. He said just let me get myself ready and send me off. No sad old dwarven songs.

He said I don't want to keep you. He said I'll not make it a scene. He said every name of every dwarf before him – those who had pledged, tongue-in-cheek, their service on his doorstep – and who had upheld every word they had in turn said to him.

Well, he had said. Well I suppose this is goodbye.

He had looked at them all without looking. Bilbo stood before his friends with the far-flung sight of a person who wants to remember every ray and every hue but see none of them now. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the barren foot of that unscalable mountain – the wizened, tender smiles and low, solid brows and warm, childish, sidelong grins. He said don't do anything horribly stupid. He said I'll be very cross with you if I hear of any more nonsense with dragons. He said be well, my friends, my dearest friends, be well, and if nothing else, he the reassurance they would watch him go until he could be watched no more. He would not be paying that promise back. He would not see any foolish dwarf tears or catch any outrageous dwarf headbutts or add any unnecessary fuss. He would not see Kíli's wild waving fade into a dark-headed, daydrenched blotch across the stomped-down yellowplain. He would not see Thorin there at all with the doubtful eyes of some great wounded mountain cat unsure of its footing and the sounds of the trees. He tried to see as much and as little as he could through the blustery, suntouched wind and the overgrown hair in his face.

If you ever find yourselves out west, Bilbo said, tea is at four. It isn't so far. Not so far, at all. You all are of course welcome at any time.

He said and you'll not the lot of you forget about me, will you. You promise, then. I've warned you. You had better not.

Well, well. Good.

Right then, Bilbo said.

He dipped his head and closed his eyes and stamped his fist over his heart as dwarf warriors taught him. And he kept them closed – too tightly – and he grabbed for the king's confused arm and shook hands, too stiffly – and he said good luck, good luck, really I think, you'll do fine.

Good-bye! Bilbo said sunnily, and divorced himself, and, without looking again, patted the king's vambrace, turned from the Mountain, and left promptly – down the great gray steps of Erebor and down the wide red tundra road and under that dizzily blue sky with the stomping dwarf boots and the cheering dwarf voices and the brilliant dwarfsong in his wake and my dear, he did not look back at anything, for anything, at all.

* * *

It is at the crispy first blink of his fifth summer home, five years Back Again, that Bilbo's book reaches to its end.

Well, almost. As it turns out – as he fluttered a thick ream of journal pages across the insole of his palm – there is one more letter in him, after all.

It says:

 _Hellos and Salutations,_

 _I know I said I wouldn't write again, but the book is finished and considering this occasion of note I thought I would offer the royal family the chance to formally review it before the account is set and bound, for accuracy's sake._

 _Obviously, it is easier for me to come to you than for you all to come to me, so I propose this: the manuscript (myself included) travel eastward to Bree, where I will then link up with a willing caravan going the old road route through the Dwarf Nation._

 _I cannot rewrite the entire book, of course, but I vow my best effort to revise or omit as you suggest. In that interest, I'll arrange my stay as is required by the editing project, or until I am no longer welcome._

 _If this is acceptable, please do let me know._

 _I Remain,_

 _Bilbo Baggins_

And there was no word.

There was, however, a noise.

One fine Forelithe morning, two whole sunwashed spring months after he had written the letter, and that wispy midwinter breath of a chance had been well enough pushed into the wastebin with the chicken gristle and the clotty ink, Bilbo had just settled down to breakfast when one more page came along.

Crisp and thunderous and arrestingly clear: _KNOCK_.

He froze at the kitchen table with the curls around his earlobes and the apple cake in his mouth.

The writer did nothing right away. He listened. He watched the motes hanging in the goldwood kitchen in the stale early light. He sat in his place and waited, teeth touching, jaw set, holding the napkin to his collar and waiting to see if had really happened at all.

 _Hello…?_ he said – too quiet, too sneaky, to be heard.

No words to answer, but _KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK._

Bilbo got up. He smoothed the crumbs off his robe. He set down his tea dish. He scooted from the table, made to walk across his den floor, quite forgot about his pushed-out chair, and crept up to the waiting emerald door.

And he opened it.

What he beheld there – standing on his own humble stoop, between his own potted marigolds, seen with his own green-sick, color-tired eyes – quite near took the last of Master Baggins's many words away.

Dwalin, he said.


End file.
